Skeleton skirt



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE;

R. W. HILL, OF NAUGATUCK, CONNECTICUT.

SKELETON SKIRT.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 26,848, dated January 17, 1860.

T o all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ROBERT IV. HILL, of the town of Naugatuck, in the county of New Haven and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Hoop-Skirts; and I do hereby declare the following to be a correct description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification, in which- Figure l, is a front view of an ordinary hoop with my improvement attached; and Fig. 2, represents my improved hoop on the person of a wearer in a sittin@ posture.

Hoop skirts made in any ot the ordinary modes are liable to the objection that they have a tendency to rise in front when the wearer is in the act of sitting. My improvement is intended to correct this tendency, and consists in placing on the outside of a hoop-skirt formedv in the ordinary way, an additional hoop attached in front to the lowermost hoop of the skirt, and in rear, to one about two thirds of the height of the skirt from the bottom, cutting the intermediate hoops at an oblique angle, and attached to them at each point of intersection, by a pin or other joint allowing freedom of motion.

In both figures of the accompanying drawings, A marks the ordinary skirt, and B, the supplemental oblique hoop, which is colored red, to distinguish it more clearly from the others. The general'figure of the skirt being conical, the oblique hoop will, from the position in which it is attached, be elliptical, its major axis, when the skirt hangs free, being from front to rear. Then the wearer of a skirt constructed in this way, is

in the act of sitting down, the circular hoops are compressed on the rear side, and converted into elliptical ones, having their greater diameter from side to side. The hoop B, by reason of its attachment to the other hoops, is acted upon in a similar manner, and has its axis reversed, its greater axis now being from side to side, instead of from front to rear. The resulting eect is that the bottom hoops, instead of rising, are drawn downward and inward toward the feet of the wearer.

This invention is attended with the incidental advantages of being less liable than ordinary skirts to get entangled by the wearers changes of position, and of being both superior in quality and lower in price than the common article, inasmuch as a stronger skirt can be made with a less number of hoops.

Having thus fully described my improvenient, I wish it understood that I do not limit myself to the use of one oblique hoop but intend to use any number that may be found advantageous.

lVhat I claim asmy invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is- Attaching to a hoop skirt, made in any of the usual forms, an additional hoop or hoops placed obliquely to the rest, and united to them by iieXible joints substantially in the manner and for the purpose specified.

The above specification signed and witnessed this twenty eighth day of December ROBT. W. I-IILL. IVitnesses CHAs. F. STANSBURY, Vosoo M. CI-IAFEE. 

